AP reports that Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi has promised to invest in the country’s telecommunications network in a speech he gave at a technology conference that was held in Addis Ababa Wednesday. The fact of the matter is that the Meles dictatorship has purposefully kept Ethiopia’s telecommunications network underdeveloped. For example, unlike most countries in the world, the Meles Woyanne regime doesn’t allow private companies to operate Internet and cellular phone services. As a result, there are more mobile phones in the anarchic Somalia than in Ethiopia. The cellular phone networks in Mogadishu, operated by private companies, are more reliable and less expensive than in Ethiopia. It is therefore disingenuous for Meles to say that his regime will invest in the Ethiopia’s telecommunications network. Read the AP report below.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP)–Ethiopia’s dictator prime minister Wednesday promised to invest in the country’s telecommunications network, long hampered by corruption, bad service and high tariffs.

“Rapid progress for countries such as Ethiopia in this area is not a choice, but a necessity,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said at the opening of a three-day technology conference in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia plans to double the size of its network within the next three weeks by putting 1.2 million new phone numbers on the market.

Abdurahim Ahmed, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s state-owned telecommunications corporation, said the expansion, along with technological improvements, will cost $21.7 million.

The expansion is in addition to a $200 million contract to upgrade the mobile network the government signed last May with a Chinese telecoms company.

Ahmed said improving telecommunications was “ammunition to reduce poverty.” He said the government regretted not putting greater effort into its telecommunications sector until a decade ago. “We didn’t give it due attention,” he told the Associated Press.

A call from Ethiopia to neighboring Kenya costs $1.47 a minute, as does a call to Australia. International calls on one of Kenya’s largest mobile networks, Celtel, vary widely, but can cost a tenth of the price, at less than 15 cents a minute, or up to $1.50 a minute.

Ethiopian newspapers have reported that several senior officials at the state telecoms company have been fired for corruption in the past months.

Text messaging in Ethiopia is forbidden, after a spate of post-election violence in 2005 when opposition protesters were accused of using the service to arrange pro-democracy rallies.